by John Tigges
“Yes!” she screamed and turned away, wrenching free of his grasp. Realizing that she was loose, she raced away from her masked dancing partner. She dashed toward the people lining the walls, their backs still to her. She stopped behind one.
“Help me! Please? Help me!” she cried plaintively.
The man to whom she addressed her plea turned to face her, but displayed another back to her. The man had no front. Forcing herself not to scream, she turned to the woman standing next to the man she had first addressed.
“Will you help me? I need help. Please? Help me! Please?” she said, noting the strange begging nuance in her voice. Why was she asking for help? Why did she need assistance from these people? Turning away from the man, she touched the woman’s shoulder. “Please?” she repeated.
The woman turned, to show that she, like the man, had no front side, only two backs. Why couldn’t she find one normal person here? What was going on?
Footsteps from behind brought her about. The man with whom she had been dancing was approaching her. He still wore a mask and held out his hands to her.
Rooted in place, she stared What did he want? Why didn’t he unmask? Who was he, this man who wore a goat’s visage over his own?
” Who … who are you?” she finally managed She no longer cared what his name might be, but cared so much who he was, that now she had managed to complete a question to him.
“Come,” he said simply, taking her hand in one of his. The calloused palm felt strange, rough, intimidating.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he said, leading her toward the middle of the dance floor.
As they approached part of the floor began rising until a rectangular portion was waist high to her. When they reached the table-like dais, they stopped and she sensed people standing close by. Turning, she found the people who had been standing around the floor, their front sides restored, facing her and the strange man. Shuffling about, they formed lines that led out, away from the table. Two files of people would move together until they touched in the distance, forming a sort of “V,” and when she turned she found that there were four more such sets of lines. It somehow seemed familiar. Where had she seen such a diagram or layout before? Was it a diagram she had seen? From the distance more and more people came, joining hands around the five points formed by the lines of people flowing out and away from the table-like dais. When a double circle of people on the outside was complete, the man looked down at her.
“Are you ready?” he asked solemnly.
“Ready? For what?”
“You invoked the love-force. The love-force has been invoked and has served you. Maruts has obeyed your command and fired the man’s love for you and the man has returned to you.” His voice rang hollowly.
“I … I invoked? What are you talking about?”
“You begged me to favor you. I answered. You sought the help of my ministers. Of Prince Beelzebub. Of Earl Astorath. All of us have favored you and granted your wish. You had great need of my counsel. You even threatened me with the great living God His Son and His Spirit, with the words of power and great wisdom of Solomon. You invoked me. I served you. Now, I want my just due.” The words echoed through the hall.
Nicole violently shook her head “No. You didn’t come when I ordered you.”
“I did. You weren’t aware of me but I have been with you ever since.”
“No! No! No!” Nicole screamed “Never!”
He reached out, touching her bare arms, and lifted her effortlessly to the table.
“On this altar, you will pay your first installment. You are mine now, as I was yours, to command You will do for me that which I order.”
Nicole wanted to fight, to resist, but found she could not move. Nothing responded to her futile mental commands. She was helpless. Defenseless. The cold of the altar on which she lay didn’t bother her, and she found her senses reeling from the situation in which she found herself.
A murmuring around her grew as the crowd of people pressed in closer to the table. “Lucifuge. Satanachia. Agaliarept. Fleuretty. Sargatanas. Nebiros. Bael. Agares. Marbas. Pruslas. Aamon. Barbatos. Buer. Gusoyn. Botis. And all the demons. Come, join us.
Watch our Emperor, Lucifer, have this slut. Come, oh, Bathim. Pursan. Abigar. Loray. Valefar. Forariu. Ayperos. Nuberus. Glasyabolas. Come. Now!”
Nicole struggled to concentrate on the names that were being intoned. Who were the people they were calling, if indeed the strange words were names? For some reason she knew they were names—but names of whom? Or what?
A slow dawning brought her to her senses. The dream! This was her dream. The one that she had been having over and over again. She had only remembered bits and pieces of it, but now the whole of it was laid out before her— and she would remember. She would finally remember. Or would she? It seemed to her that she had had the same thought before whenever experiencing it, but when she awoke, the entire dream always eluded her, escaping into the deepest recesses of her mind No matter how hard she tried, she could never dredge up more than a thread or two of it. She’d try this time to retain the experience.
The people crowding in around her continued chanting one name over and over. “Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer!”
Looking down the length of her body she saw her partner standing near her feet. He reached up grasping the goat’s mask to remove it. Would he have another under it? Pulling it away with a sweep, he lay bare his face and she shrieked at the visage before her. Almost triangular in shape, the face held slanted eyes that paralleled his “v” shaped mouth which in turn complimented the angular lines of his chin.
“Lucifer! The kiss! Lucifer! The kiss! Lucifer! The kiss! Make her yours! Make her yours! Make her yours!” The cries grew louder and sharper in their fanaticism as the people bowed to the grim personage at her feet. Leaping to the table, he straddled her legs, before dropping to his knees. Ripping off the dancer’s costume he had worn, he reached out tearing away her silk dress, exposing her nakedness.
His glowing amber eyes swept over the damned congregation crying out to him. “Kiss!” he boomed and leaned down, closer to Nicole’s face.
Closing her eyes tight, she turned her head away. She didn’t want him to kiss her. Nothing happened. After several long minutes dragged by, during which she sensed the demon‘s nearness more than felt it, she tentatively opened one eye to find him still kneeling in the same position. Was he waiting for her to offer her lips to him? Then she saw a blur of motion behind him and opened her other eye. The people were passing by, kissing him on the hind side, extolling him in loud voices: “Hail Emperor Lucifer! Hail to Thee, Our Lord and Master!”
Great God! What had she gotten involved in? This dream in all its symbolism and weird-ness had to mean something. But what? Why didn’t she simply wake up? Could she wake up? Or—might she be dead? Gone to Hell? Paying for her sins. What sins? She had never done anything terribly wrong that she felt she would wind up in the netherworld like this.
The last of the creatures kissed the thing above her and he smiled at her. Kneeling erect, he threw his arms out, and at the same time, a blood engorged penis, as large in diameter as her arm and as long, sprang out in front of him.
Nicole screamed, trying to move away, but heavy hands reached out, grasping her and holding her in place. More hands pulled on her ankles, spreading her legs.
“No! No, dear God, no!” she screamed but was answered by the coterie pushing in closer and closer.
“Yes! Yes, dear Lucifer! Yes!” they cried, mimicking her.
The demon came closer, his gigantic member moving of its own accord, angled toward her crotch. When he touched her with it, she gasped at its fiery temperature. Then, he drove it home and she screamed—long and loud. The cry hung in the air, lingering, as the beast pumped at her fragile human body. The semen exploded inside her, icy cold, gushing out of her past his ramming organ, down the inside of her thighs. A hue and cry went up and the people again clamore
d loudly.
“The Kiss! She must give the Kiss! The Kiss! The Kiss! The Kiss!”
Nicole tried moving, tried thinking, tried reasoning. Nothing worked. She was doomed. She was in Hell. She was dead. She had to be. This was no dream. She should have awakened long before this if it were truly a dream.
The demon withdrew his still rigid member, which quickly withered and shrank until it dangled spent and lifeless along his own thigh, its head bouncing between his knees. Standing, he turned his backside to her and knelt once more. He waited.
Nicole sat up, powerless to do anything but comply with the order she felt drumming in her head.
“Kiss! Kiss him! Kiss Lucifer! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
When she neared him, he bent down, his buttocks spreading apart. Where did she kiss him ? There? There in the middle of the cheeks? She shuddered, leaning forward Puckering her lips, she felt her breath gasping spasmodically. She touched him—for the briefest of seconds— and withdrew.
Then she felt herself floating lightly through the air. Somewhere a maniacal laugh rang through the darkness and she was being hurled down, down, down. At last, she landed on something soft.
6:19 A.M.
Terrified, Nicole opened her eyes to the familiar darkness of her room. Her body, drenched in sweat, trembled uncontrollably.
The dream. She had experienced her dream, and this time she remembered everything. A sick feeling grew from a tiny pinpoint in her stomach, spiraling outward until her whole being vibrated with a nausea she had never felt before. The dream. What did it mean? She remembered thinking she might be dead and almost wished for it as her stomach heaved and jerked.
She sat up. And screamed.
There at the foot of her bed, she saw the same being with the triangular visage, who had violated her in the nightmare. Her strength, her will to live, all human desire wilted—and she fainted, sprawling back on the bed.
The demon lingered for a moment and then disappeared. The same evil smile that had graced his countenance while preparing to rape Nicole, played on his thin, wrinkled lips.
Nicole’s faint became a dreamless sleep, and when hands again grasped her, she sat up, screaming at the top of her voice.
“Hey,” Myles cried, surprised by her reaction, “take it easy. You having a bad dream?”
Nicole stared at him, failing to understand that Myles actually stood there, a foolish little grin on his face. Dreaming? Yes. That was it. She had been dreaming. Her dream. But now, for some unfathomable reason, she could recall everything in the minutest of details. The dance, the frontless people, the demon, his raping her, kissing him on the … She gagged, jumping from the bed and dashing headlong toward the bathroom.
THE DEMON! She had seen him standing at the foot of her bed. Or had that been part of her dream as well? In the bathroom, she knelt by the toilet, her head hovering over the water. She felt like vomiting but knew she couldn’t. There was nothing in her stomach.
“Are you all right?” Myles asked from the doorway of the bathroom.
Assured that she wouldn’t throw up, Nicole stood, forcing a smile. “I might be coming down with the flu or something.”
“Sleeping bare-assed naked won’t help if you’re getting sick, you know,” he said, motioning to her nudity.
She looked down. Where was her nightgown? She had put it on. She distinctly remembered having done so. Myles stared at her while she reconstructed her dressing for bed. She shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
“Bad dream?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you want to get up or go back to sleep? You could call in sick if you don’t feel one hundred percent.”
“What time is it?”
He looked at his watch. “Six thirty.”
“I’d better think about getting up. How bad was the fire?”
“Very bad. Quite a few died in it. A real mess.”
“Will you make coffee?”
“Sure,” he said, leaving the bathroom.
When he was gone, Nicole ran to the bed and threw back the covers. She swallowed the scream that almost erupted. There, in the middle of the bed was her silk nightgown, shredded into threads. Something else held her attention for a long minute. The spot. She reached out to touch it. Cold. It was freezing cold and damp. Again, she desperately struggled not to scream. Without looking, one hand moved toward her lower abdomen. It felt normal. The fingertips trailed down, through her pubic hair and on to the insides of her thighs. Wet. Damp. Cold. That dream was too damned realistic.
She heard Myles making coffee, and when the cupboard doors slammed, she knew he’d be with her in seconds. Throwing her destroyed nightgown into the hamper, she was almost ready to throw the covers over the spot. What would Myles say? He’d be in bed shortly. How would she explain it?
“Hey, Nicole. Come here,” he called from the kitchen.
“In a sec.” She slipped into her dressing gown and, tying it about her middle, went to the kitchen only to meet Myles coming toward her. “What’s the matter?”
“What’s all over the kitchen table?”
“All over the table? I don’t know.”
“Well, take a look at it and tell me,” he said, guiding her by one arm.
When they entered the small room, she looked at the table, barely big enough to hold the dishes for two people’s meals. It was clean. Spotlessly clean.
“Look at what?” she asked, turning to face him.
Stepping around her, he stopped short. “It was there a second ago. Really.”
“What was there?”
“I don’t know but it was sort of a whiteish-gray goop of some kind. No. More like uncooked egg white. Yeah. Uncooked egg white. That’s it.” He stared at her, waiting for an explanation.
“Well, whatever was there is gone now, isn’t it?” she said, trying to sound undisturbed.
“For a minute, I thought it looked like …” Myles stopped.
She waited, but when he didn’t continue, she asked, “What?” Holding her breath, she wondered what he would compare it to now.
“Like semen, damnit!” he said gruffly. “But it would have had to have come from a horse or a bull, there was so much of it.”
“Tired, darling?”
“Goddamnit, don’t patronize me, Nicole. I know I saw it. At least I think I did. Ah, crap. Let me go to bed. I’m exhausted.” He pushed around her and went to the bedroom.
Following closely, Nicole practically tripped over his heels. When he looked at the bed and continued around it, she stopped in the doorway. The spot that had been there a moment before was gone.
The only sound in the apartment—other than Nicole’s quick breathing—was the bubbling of the coffee maker in the kitchen.
10
Tuesday, November 18, 1986 7:30 A.M.
Nicole studied Myles over the rim of her cup as she sipped her coffee. He sat at the opposite end of the couch, doing the same thing. “Are you certain the coffee won’t keep you awake when you do go to bed?” she asked, placing her own cup on the low table in front of the couch.
He smiled grimly. “I’m so beat a herd of elephants charging through the apartment wouldn’t faze me.”
He had told her some of the incidents about the fire he had covered after they mutually and silently agreed not to mention whatever it was he had seen on the kitchen table. Nicole wondered about it. She had seen the wet spot on the sheets and mattress. Yet, when they had returned to the bedroom, it, like Myles’ discovery, had vanished as well. Perhaps it had come from her and was ready to evaporate anyway.
The dream in its entirety had been more than arousing. She had actually climaxed sometime during the night. All of the aftereffects had been there—the absolute feeling of total weakness, almost an inability to move, the glowing that traversed her entire body, right down to the sensation of euphoria—all of them had been there. She had climaxed during the night and had left some of her own bodily fluids staining the sheets. Fortunately, they had dried.<
br />
“What time do you think you’ll get up?” she asked.
“Probably around three or so. I still have to report the news, you know.” His voice quaked in its tired state. “What about you? Are you all right?”
She looked up, startled. “Wha … what do you mean?”
“Your dream. The one that made you scream when I awakened you. Remember?”
“Oh, that,” she said, trying her best to sound nonchalant. When she looked at him, she realized she had failed.
“Don’t try to down-play it, girl,” he said gently. “If you had a bad one, tell me about it. It’ll probably help you get over any fear it might have caused you.”
How could she tell him? The whole thing was weird. But maybe if she talked about it with someone, it would go away and never bother her again. She’d simply have to trust her instincts concerning Myles.
“It all started with me standing outside this ballroom with golden doors trimmed in red,” she began slowly.
When she finished, Myles stared at her. The fatigue lining his face still clung there but his eyes betrayed the curiosity of the newsman. “Wow,” he managed. “That’s about the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Myles!” she said. “That’s about the last thing …”
“Hey, wait a minute. Don’t go off half-cocked. Did you listen to everything you just told me? That was some pretty steamy stuff. As a budding psychologist, you should know that one is not responsible for the dreams one experiences. Am I right?”
She nodded slowly.
“Then I rest my case in that particular area. It is sexy. Have you ever had anything like this happen before?”
She turned away.
“I don’t mean for real. I mean, have you had any dreams like that before last night?”
Without facing him, she said, “Yes.”
Myles didn’t respond immediately. When several minutes had passed, she turned to face him.
“Just like it? The same dream? Or were they different?” He smiled reassuringly.
“Yes,” she managed, before coughing to clear her voice. “I’ve had the same dream before, I think.”